Balancing the Chiefs
by Chris Thorman on Nov 25, 2008 12:18 PM CST
in 2008 Kansas City Chiefs Campaign
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PrintI've been frustrated the last few years with the Jekyll/Hyde phenomenon with the Kansas City Chiefs. Last year's offense was arguably the worst Chiefs offense of all time. This year, it's the defense. That led me to do a bit of research to see if a "balanced" offense and defense (via end of season rankings) had any correlation to winning. See for yourself:
| Year | Coach | Off. Rank | Def. Rank | Diff. | Win % | Wins | Losses |
| 2002 | Vermeil | 4 | 32 | 28 | 50% | 8 | 8 |
| 2008 | Edwards | 25 | 32 | 7 | 6% | 1 | 10 |
| 2004 | Vermeil | 1 | 31 | 30 | 44% | 7 | 9 |
| 2003 | Vermeil | 2 | 29 | 27 | 81% | 13 | 3 |
| 2005 | Vermeil | 1 | 25 | 24 | 63% | 10 | 6 |
| 2001 | Vermeil | 5 | 23 | 18 | 38% | 6 | 10 |
| 1996 | Schottenheimer | 22 | 18 | 4 | 56% | 9 | 7 |
| 2000 | Cunningham | 8 | 18 | 10 | 44% | 7 | 9 |
| 1990 | Schottenheimer | 7 | 16 | 9 | 69% | 11 | 5 |
| 2006 | Edwards | 16 | 16 | 0 | 56% | 9 | 7 |
| 1999 | Cunningham | 12 | 14 | 2 | 56% | 9 | 7 |
| 1991 | Schottenheimer | 5 | 13 | 8 | 63% | 10 | 6 |
| 2007 | Edwards | 31 | 13 | 18 | 25% | 4 | 12 |
| 1994 | Schottenheimer | 5 | 12 | 7 | 56% | 9 | 7 |
| 1997 | Schottenheimer | 14 | 11 | 3 | 81% | 13 | 3 |
| 1993 | Schottenheimer | 16 | 11 | 5 | 69% | 11 | 5 |
| 1998 | Schottenheimer | 19 | 9 | 10 | 44% | 7 | 9 |
| 1992 | Schottenheimer | 25 | 5 | 20 | 63% | 10 | 6 |
| 1995 | Schottenheimer | 14 | 2 | 12 | 81% | 13 | 3 |
Nothing ground breaking here but I figured it would stir up some great conversation.
Anyone else ready for it to be Thanksgiving yet???
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the numbers indicate the major problem
with the Chiefs on Peterson’s watch…and that is they’ve never been able to put a world class offense AND defense on the field at the same time. One side or the other is chronically deficient.
And yes I am ready for Thanksgiving
It is very rare
to have “a world class offense AND defense on the field at the same time”
Most Super Bowl winners are solid on one side (say top 5) and above average (16th or better) on the other.
When you do have “a world class offense AND defense”, you go 16-0 in the regular season (and even then, I don’ t think the Pats had a top 5 defense last year)
no, but as noted below
they seem to be top 10 in both…now there’s some differential, to be sure, but you just can’t have a pedestrian side of the ball unless you’re the Ravens…
1995 and 2003
how do you explain those? and then throw in 1997…I am confused
"But what do I know, I’m like an empty room with a large ECHO"
1995 is easily explained
Lin Elliott…and a marginal offense
97…by Elvis Grbac…and a marginal offense
and 03….no defense whatsoever
the other thing to notice
is that since Marty left, the defense has struggled, even with Gunther running the team…or maybe that started BECAUSE Gunther was running the team
Methodology Is Slightly Flawed
You’re only comparing the variation between the Chiefs’ offensive and defensive rankings while excluding where those teams place in the league overall. Balance is only important in regular season win-loss rankings if both offense and defense are performing competently in relation to the rest of the league. If one side of the team is absolutely dominant (e.g. Chiefs offense of 2003) that can overcome the other side’s deficiencies in the win-loss column to some extent.
Basically you appear to be trying to find a correlation between balanced attacks and wins and losses and there’s not really going to be a straight one. I haven’t looked this up but balanced attacks are probably going to be more relevant when you’re talking about the playoffs, where you’ve got the better teams going against each other over a smaller sample size of games.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
True
I know there are some issues with the data I chose. As Primetime would say, this is a throwaway post but I figured in the brief time I had today I’d throw it up.
by Chris Thorman on Nov 25, 2008 12:51 PM CST up reply actions
Would be nice to see comparisons
to some winning teams and what their rankings were.
have you seen my baseball?
I would be very interested in looking at these statistics
across super bowl winners over the last 10-15 years….
I did this research once before
Going back to 1990, if memory serves me right, there were only two super bowl winners who were not in the top half in BOTH defense and offense the season they won. Let me see if I can find my old post.
Link for info
Here is a reference for looking at the Super Bowl winners and what their rank in points scored and points allowed were. I am too lazy today to break it down but if someone else would like to here you go.
might be slightly flawed
but there is no doubt that the 2003 defense was gawdawful. And that the offense in 95 and 97 was marginally competent at best.
The thought occured to me to compare across other
teams but damn, that’s just a lot of work.
by Chris Thorman on Nov 25, 2008 1:06 PM CST up reply actions
I would have to side with Chris at this point
"But what do I know, I’m like an empty room with a large ECHO"
Definitely
a post to do to sneak away from the future in-laws this weekend.
by Chris Thorman on Nov 25, 2008 1:09 PM CST up reply actions
I can write you an excuse note
that might help out….
I don't even know
where you’re getting this info from, but I’m pretty bored at work for the next couple hours.
have you seen my baseball?
I searched all around
and found the only spot to really go is year by year on NFL.com stats.
by Chris Thorman on Nov 25, 2008 3:53 PM CST up reply actions
Cunnigham
Looking at this post and referring to the discussion from the other day, it looks like Cunningham took over one of the worst defenses imaginable when he returned in 2004. Again, the trendline for our defensive ranking was increasing rather steadily before this year. So, he might deserve a chance to figure out what went so tragically wrong this year. I really think we need to bring in a much better D-line coach and draft an MLB in the first round (Laurinitis) and the D could vastly improve next year. That is, of course, if we can find somebody that can create some measure of a pass rush.
One further question, how much do we think Herm is limiting the defense by sticking so stubbornly to the cover 2 scheme? If Herm left Cunnigham alone like he did Gailey do you think the defense could go through a similar renaissance?
I Doubt It
Gunther and Herm have been working together for the better part of three years now and Gunther’s defenses haven’t been that good, topping out at middle of the pack in 2006 and 2007. I think the more telling problem is if you look at the players Gunther’s brought in and the areas of the defense he’s taken control of. Right now the best lineman the Chiefs have is Glenn Dorsey…a rookie. You’ve got Turk McBride, a 2nd year player, who contributed very little before he went out for the season, and Tank Tyler, also a 2nd year player, who doesn’t appear to be contributing much this year. Both are being outplayed by Dorsey which wouldn’t be a problem if Dorsey were a dominant player this year, but he hasn’t been…he’s been doing okay for a rookie lineman but he’s nobody’s idea of an All-Pro right now.
The linebacking corps last year was arguably the strength of the team when somebody else was coaching it but Gunther took that over this season, ran off last year’s leading tackler (Napoleon Harris) and replaced him with Pat Thomas (who’s not good). The guy who was supposed to be the Chiefs’ star at linebacker this season (Derrick Johnson) is now on pace for his worst season as a pro, the Chiefs’ biggest free agent signing this offseason (DeMorrio Williams) can’t crack the starting lineup regularly and the linebacking corps has gone from a relative strength last season to an obvious weakness this season.
The biggest thing the Chiefs did to the linebackers going into training camp was replace the linebackers coach and the linebacking corps has been a state of more or less absolute chaos ever since. If it were just one of the starting linebackers not living up to expectations that would be one thing, but when it’s pretty much everyone in that area having problems I think you have to look at the coach and wonder just what the hell he’s doing that’s got everyone so screwed up. And when you add in the struggles with the entire defense I think you seriously have to seriously question the defensive coordinator’s decision to pull double duty as DC and linebackers coach, and question his ability to function as a coordinator overall if he feels he has to do everyone else’s job in order to get any results (and can’t recognize when that’s producing negative results). In fact, looking back wasn’t one of the reasons Gunther got fired as a head coach because he insisted on micromanaging the defensive coordinator position, which distracted from his ability to function as the head coach? It just seems to me that if he can’t be trusted to learn from his previous mistakes and he keeps repeating the same bad habits that got him fired before then it’s probably wishful thinking to assume he’ll realize now that he’s part of the problem.
I’m of the opinion that Gunther’s as much to blame for the defensive problems as Herm is. Gunther’s at fault because he can’t overcome his tendencies to micromanage and it’s killing the defense, Herm’s at fault because he doesn’t hold Gunther accountable for the results of what he’s doing.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Ok, with that in mind
Who will be available on the market for defensive coordinator if we dump Gunther?
David Gibbs
Our current defensive backs coach. He’s in charge of the only part of the defense that seems capable of doing its job.
You shouldn’t bring in somebody from outside mid-season unless you’re sure that the guy’s going to be a long-term solution or you have absolutely no other choice.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Interesting that last year our defense was 13
We get rid of players that helped us achieve that and we are now one of the worst defenses in recent memory.
Indecision is the key to flexibility
He was in charge of the linebackers in Tennessee and they weren't great then.
Indecision is the key to flexibility
He was a decent coordinator when he was here the first time.
The thing about that was that we had a pretty talented group of players.
Indecision is the key to flexibility
And Marty Schottenheimer
I’ve come to the conclusion that Jon Yoon over at MVN was right…Gunther got a lot of credit for being a great defensive coordinator because he worked for a coach who just happened to have build great defenses at every place he coached (most of them without Gunther). Subtract the Marty Schottenheimer years and Gunther’s just a guy who curses at his players a lot and hasn’t done much of anything on defense that half of the defensive coordinators in the NFL in any given year haven’t done.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
I miss Marty more and more
Even without a Championship (which I wished he would have got) he gave us an Era in Chiefs history that I will never forget.
He Was An Excellent Coach
But he probably left here about the right time. Every coach is on a ticking clock at any job in the NFL and I think Marty had kind of run his course here. Supposedly a lot of the players were fed up with him after the whole Greg Hill mess (although that’s mainly rumor).
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
What was the Greg Hill mess?
Sounds interesting
by KansasCityShuffle on Nov 25, 2008 6:37 PM CST up reply actions
Supposedly
Back in 1997 Marty and Hill were banging the same chick (not sure who’s girlfriend it was…most of the stories I heard said Hill’s) and Marty decided to punish Hill for it by not playing him (even though he was supposed to replace Marcus Allen). So Hill got shipped out before the 1998 season even though we didn’t have anyone to replace him. The rumor was that quite a few players in the locker room were very unhappy with Marty’s behavior.
There was also a rumor that Marty supposedly knocked up some waitress at Tanner’s as well. A buddy of mine who was a rabid Browns fan said that there were similar stories about Marty back in Cleveland too.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Caveat
This is all rumor and I have absolutely no proof of any of this. But the stories have been out there for a long time so I don’t think it’s particularly scandalous to rehash them.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Absolutely crazy story!
I never heard that! Marty couldn’t keep it in his pants? Never saw that one!
Out Of All The Stories I Heard About What Happened With Hill
It was the only one that made sense. Nobody dumps a young running back from their team when a) he was their first round pick and b) they’ve got nobody that good to replace him unless there was some really shady crap going on behind the scenes. And Hill wasn’t a guy who got into a lot of trouble from what I heard.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Wow
As a woman, how do you go from banging Greg Hill to old man Schottenheimer? The more likely scenario is Hill got it on with Marty’s gal…………………………or at least I hope.
by KansasCityShuffle on Nov 25, 2008 7:26 PM CST up reply actions
Unless
She was somebody who figured that Marty was a better bet than Hill long-term.
Not groupie is shallow about looks…some are shallow about money and power too. :) And like Henry Kissinger once said, power is the ultimate aphrodisiac.
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
Henry Kissinger
would be the one to know
by KansasCityShuffle on Nov 25, 2008 9:03 PM CST up reply actions
He Nailed Jill St. John After All
Twice. :)
Supporting the lesser of two evils is still supporting something evil.
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